Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday January 05, 2010 @10:35AM
from the back-to-your-oars-slave dept.

dasButcher writes "While the economy is showing signs of recovery and tech stocks posted double- and triple-digit gains in 2009, IT workers are facing a less hospitable workplace in the coming year. Many employers say they're going to continue trimming budgets, particularly in human resources. Rather than giving up head count, they're planning to trim 401k contributions, eliminate bonuses, curtail travel and, dare we say, shut off the free coffee (it wasn't that good anyway)."

IMHO, getting rid of free coffee is a huge mistake. In the scheme of things it's a tiny expense and you're going to lose far more in terms of people bickering about the coffee fund, people running out "on break" to buy coffee, and the basic office environment.

My guess though is that if you're spending $80k per year on coffee, then it's for a hell of a lot of people, and that $80k expense (and a single job) IS tiny on that scale. If an $80k expenditure costs a job but improves morale of a few thousand employees enough to make up for it in productivity gains, then it's the right thing to do.

I tend to agree. When the economy goes south, and you either stop giving raises, or start giving paycuts, sometimes the best way to keep employees happy is with relatively minor perks like these. I worked for a company where there was a hiring and raise freeze during a merger. No one was happy. They expaned the free coffee into free hot cocoa as well. It was a minor thing, but the gesture seemed to make people happy.

While that may have worked at your business I disagree. I recently had a discussion with someone at another IT company and we were bashing just this practice. It seems that every couple months there will be a round of paycuts or firings followed by bowling night/movie night/new fancy coffee maker and donuts in the break room... to the point that those who have been around a while shudder every time they see or hear about any "perks". This may work in some places, but in general engineers and IT people are

I found a quick quote that claimed "the general rule of thumb for office coffee service pricing is $60 to $120 per employee per year." So he's talking about a business with at least 667 employees and probably close to 1000.

So, if the average employee is 0.1% more productive with free coffee getting rid of the free coffee was a bad business decision and the Cxx (COO, CFO, whatever) who made that decision should be beaten to death with his own intestines or fired.

My office has free coffee -- a dozen kinds of Keurig pods -- and a free soda fountain. We all got pretty miffed when they down-sized the free cups, but, meh.

It's about $25-50/week not spent at the overpriced retail joints. Figure 200 employees at ten minutes, once a day to run downstairs, that's 166 hours of lost productivity -- or somewhere between $5-10K PER WEEK. To the employees, that's about $250K of collective benefit. To the employer, it's about double that in productivity not lost to everyone schlepping downstairs for coffee and soda.

On the other hand, my mother's office eliminated their coffee service, one kind, giant urn of Yuban, claiming it was an unnecessary expense. That manager got a bonus for reducing overhead...

And now that all the IT people are from China, we need an HR manager that understands the culture... and keeps the same time schedule... and that feels more approachable to our new employees, and is payed along the same lines as our new IT staff. Hmmmm yes, you just outsourced your own job... idiot!

Wow, what timing. This morning when our company announced that it was canceling the coffee service to save money, I immediately asked what that savings would be. $200 a month was the answer, for our location which employs roughly 130 people. I was floored. If our financial situation is that serious, maybe I need to start looking for another job?

You might want to look at the math. If you, as an individual, drank $400 of coffee per year, that would lead to $80,000 of coffee per year covering over 200 employees. Or 100 employees who drink twice as much as you do. Or 50 employees who suffer severe shakes, headaches, and moments of telepathy. Or 25 employees who swim in tanks filled with the spice melange and wrap space-time so heighliner ships can reach their destinations. And that may be money well spent. Or 1 to 5 employees who were selling coffee to the other employees using company funds.

I was part of a recent double merger (where two companies split a division off their parent companies to form a third "independent" company).They flew damn near *all* the managers from one company over to see the other execs for a face to face.

One company in the US the other in Europe...The airfare alone could have paid my wages, healthcare, perks, etc. for two full years. The per-diam and hotel costs could have paid an additional year and change of the same.

You can always fit a small refrigerator inside of a std. rack (lay a couple of 2x4's across the bottom to hold it up, and make sure the rack doors are on it, front and back). Put your own coffee maker on top of it, and you're set. Tape a few Dell server front panels to the inside of the rack door while you're at it. If you're really into disguises, wire up a few LED's to those panels.

Now if only there was a way to squeeze a big-screen TV in there... and no, not sideways.

Back in the olden days of Computers...like 10 years ago...I was one of the many who was against unionization of IT workers. Now, having been badly treated by both small companies, and one of the largest single-digit level manufacturers of computers, I see that I was wrong. Today's 'sweatshops' are in computer assembly factories, and in call centers. They both use Skinner like systems with seemingly random rewards and punishments to keep people in line.

These days, digging ditches is a more profitable and satisfying job...fully unionized, with guaranteed vacation and benefits, and a grievance system that actually works!

... is a mixture of pure unsupported assertations, and anecdotes pretending to be data. Any evidence to show that "strikes hurt employees more through lost wages than they gain in negotiations"? In fact, there's a lot of history that shows that unions did, in fact, make lives better for not only their own workers, but for everyone - and not only in the form of wages, but also in things like medical benefits and safe working conditions. For example: the five day work week - brought to you by the AFL-CIO.

Enough with the union bashing, already. Read a little history of the labor movement, and then see what you think.

Bullshit. The problems in Detroit are due to executive mismanagement and the lack of universal health care. But way to hate on your fellow workers, for daring to negotiate decent health insurance and retirement benefits.

Yes, actually. For those who still have jobs. Remember, those workers were not the ones designing crap quality cars, and paying hundreds of millions of dollars of bonuses to execs who basically did nothing but not do badly that year. One year's worth of exec bonuses at the Big 3 would pay for all of the benefits of the UAW workers for the next 10 years.

Americans seem to have to wrong idea about what Unions are about. It has become a lethal fight in a system that basically says: The worker has no rights.

In Holland unions work together and it is not unusual for the unions AND the employers to unite and tell the government to go screw it self. Like on wage freezes recently. The government said all wages (except its own oddly enough, an oversight I am sure) should be frozen and in some sectors employees and unions said that they had already sorted things out and wouldn't do it.

ideally, government, employers and unions/workers should all work together to create a working society with give and take and the realization that just because you are on opposites ends of the negotiation table, that doesn't mean you have to be enemies with no common goals.

"Most strikes hurt employees considerably more with lost wages than they gain in negotiatio"False.

"so is union leadership. "Yes they can ebcem corrpupt, but that doesn't mean they wil;l or that the employees can't change that.

"The reason my last company was able to cut salaries and treat people terribly is because we allowed it. "If only you had a common group that appointed a leader to negotiate with management~Unions are how you don't let an org

The answer isn't to unionize to get paid more than the job is worth, the answer is to find another job.

Really? It seems to work quite well for the ditch diggers, or rather, for the ditch diggers who were smart enough to organize and negotiate a living wage through collective bargaining. Meanwhile, the Fox News-watching ditch diggers are proudly toiling for $11 an hour and no benefits.
I'd say that "the answer" is to get that union card.

That "trickle down" always reminds me of The Outlaw Josey Wales: "Senator, don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." Wealth doesn't trickle down, it flows upwards. Wealth is created on the factory floor, the fry cook's stove, the programmer's cube. The suits in the corner office don't create wealth, they merely aggregate and control it.

Every job is different. Every career is different. Things ebb and flow. For a long time, IT workers were spoiled primadonna. Now they're just another cost center. Guess what, the economy is jacked up. Budget cuts have to happen. IT is a necessity, but so is efficiency, cost control, etc. Welcome to the real world you big f'ing crybabies.

Very few in IT are actually worthy of being treated as something special, and regardless of how many people here don't understand it, most slashdotters are not 'special' with their skills today. 10 years ago, slashdot users had automatic street cred, today, its just another haven for wanna-bes with a few geeks still mixed in from the 'good ol days'

"Every job is different. Every career is different. Things ebb and flow. For a long time, IT workers were spoiled primadonna. Now they're just another cost center. Guess what, the economy is jacked up. Budget cuts have to happen. IT is a necessity, but so is efficiency, cost control, etc. Welcome to the real world you big f'ing crybabies."

I'm dramatically overpaid for what I do if you look at it from a day-to-day effort perspective. I do my work, but my dad is a heavy duty mechanic, and I'm a chair jock

A factory has a major problem that closed their manufacturing line. A consultant is brought in. The Consultant wanders around the factory floor, listening, poking. Finally, he takes out a small hammer and taps gently a few times on one particular piece of machinery. The factory line roars back to life, production once again in progress. The factory managers are ecstatic.

A week later, the factory recieves the invoice from The Consultant. The price was $900 for less than one hour of work. The factory's business people fumed and asked The Consultant for an explanation. The Consultant offered to send in an itemized invoice. The business people said, "yes, please do."

A second invoice arrived. It had two line items. Item 1 was, "Rectifying Problem with Hammer Hit....$1" Item 2 was, "Knowing Where to Hit the Hammer....$899"

we mixed a little dirt in a cup of cold water and called it instant. If you wanted creamer, you added drop or two of Liquid Paper. Tasted like shit, but the extra chemicals and minerals kept you going.

On the flipside, caffeine, in moderate doses, enhances mental focus, and for developers, that can be a real boon (I work just fine without caffeine, but if I have to buckle down for an intense coding session, a little caffeine and a pair of isolating headphones is, hands down, the best way for me to get in the flow and stay there for a prolonged period of time).

Try and get your learn on [dailynewscentral.com] before making yourself sound like a jackass:

The findings revealed increased activity in the frontal lobe, where working memory is centered, and the anterior cingulum, which controls attention, in volunteers after consuming 100 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of about two cups of coffee. These areas showed no increased activity when the subjects drank the same fluid without caffeine in it.

"The increased activity means you are more able to focus," Koppelstaetter said. "You hav

The more you screw your employees, the more they will find ways to screw you. Turn off Gmail and Slashdot? Fine, I'll take a once-an-hour smoke break. Hack my 401k? I'll sit and stare at the ceiling. Bust by balls about travel costs? See if I don't have a "family thing" next time and can't go. People will take what they feel (rightly or wrongly) is their due, whether you give it to them or not.

It seems particularly counterproductive to do so on the really cheap; but warm and fuzzy, nonmonetary perks. In even modest quantities, the unit cost of a cup of mediocre coffee isn't quite zero, but it sure isn't high. Certainly lower than the per-unit cost(either for you or for your employees) of having them nipping out to Starbucks for 15 minutes, rather than the kitchen for 5).

It seems particularly counterproductive to do so on the really cheap; but warm and fuzzy, nonmonetary perks.

Every good manager knows that it is far more effective (from an employee motivation POV) to spend a reasonable amount of money providing small and helpful perks like this, than it would be to take the same amount of money and distribute it among the employees as part of their next raise.

I once worked running the IT dept. for a bank, and seriously, during a high-level meeting including the president, CFO, myself, and a bunch of VPs they sat and laughed while discussing, for 15 minutes, how they found even crappier plastic utensils that were super cheap (I calculated the savings which equaled $7.00 per month). The combined salary in that room for 15 minutes could have bought Oneida silverware for every kitchenette, and it ended with them stating: "haha, they are so weak and flimsy people will just stop using them and bring their own!" and had a good laugh.

Twenty years ago, companies jumped-up IT guys and made them "Web Masters" -- coders, server maintainers, content creators and (in their own minds) designers -- giving them six figure salaries. Every company, no matter how small, felt it needed to have a "server room" and maintain their e-mail service locally. The Marketing secretary always needed help figuring out how to print her boss's agenda out of Lotus Organizer.

Times changed.

Now, companies buy website templates for sixty bucks non-exclusive (three grand exclusive) and they're sitting in a server room at a place called Dreamhost or Hostgator. The content is maintained via a CMS run by the Marketing secretary. Employers and employees are using Gmail and other cloud-based e-mail systems because the lines between personal and work IT space have become so blurred. Nobody needs help printing anymore, because an entire generation has been raised on the Internet and personal computer systems.

People will take what they feel (rightly or wrongly) is their due, whether you give it to them or not.And employers will replace them with 20-something go-getters with better attitudes and more up-to-date skills, and at half the salary.

And employers will replace them with 20-something go-getters with better attitudes and more up-to-date skills, and at half the salary.

Where is this elusive species to be found in quantity? The specimens I am familiar with have a hard time spelling "Word", much less using it. To them "The Web" is Yahoo, Gmail, and Facebook. And finally, SMTP is text slang for Suck My Teats and Poonani (less vulgar translation).

Yes, they can print and download, but in my experience deep knowledge of the plumbing behind the Internet is fading, not expanding.

Now, companies buy website templates for sixty bucks non-exclusive (three grand exclusive) and they're sitting in a server room at a place called Dreamhost or Hostgator.

Getting hacked regularly by some turd who wants to take over the server to make into a warez repository, spam relay, look around for credit card records, or replace all the images with "I kno u dont want 2 see thiz but herez tha ded iraqi babies tha ebil US killz."

The content is maintained via a CMS run by the Marketing secretary.

Who barely knows how to spell, let alone write, and thus the site looks incredibly unprofessional. But hey, you get what you pay for. And the exec who set it up this way got a blowjob from the Marketing Boobs...er Secretary.

Employers and employees are using Gmail and other cloud-based e-mail systems because the lines between personal and work IT space have become so blurred.

Which works great right until either their net connection goes down, or Gmail has an outage, or AT&T's crappy network is shitting again, and they're bugging the IT guy to "FIX MY GMAIL ON MY IPHONE FIX MY GMAIL ON MY IPHONE FIX MY GMAIL ON MY IPHONE."

Nobody needs help printing anymore, because an entire generation has been raised on the Internet and personal computer systems

Right up until they jam the printer, or come up with a document with nonstandard margins, or do 1001 other things that the lusers always do.

The level of competence in the average office is still right about zero. The difference today is that rather than having respect for the skills of those who can actually handle technology, the lusers have been told they have the right to treat IT staff as somewhere between the House N****r and Corporate Slave. Think about it. Would you stand over the guy fixing your car yelling "FIX IT FASTER I WANT IT NOW FIX IT FIX IT"? No? IT staff get that crap all day long. They are stuck in the no-win scenario wherein if required preventative maintenance means taking something offline for a couple hours, they are yelled at, but if they don't do the preventative maintenance, they get yelled at for not doing it when the system REALLY goes tits-up. They get nickeled and dimed for wanting to implement real security precautions such as proper firewalling and password security, but then blamed for "not doing enough" when Ditzy McSluttyboobs the secretary goes download-happy and unleashes half a dozen worms inside the corporate network.

And increasingly, they're supposed to be "supporting" systems spread over so many locations and they're only given proper admin control over their own locality, meaning that they get yelled at for telling someone that the problem is at Site #3, and yes, it's being worked on, and no, they don't have the access to fix it directly here at Site #2, and then Dipshit McBrainlesssuit sends an email to his bosses about how things are "always down" and "these guys aren't doing their jobs" in order to try to "force" the poor IT guy to "work faster" on something that isn't even under his control.

The travel expenses thing has gotten crazy for me. It's like the accountants think the company is doing me a favour letting me go to an exciting foreign hotel, experience the interior of exotic taxis, and meet the charming foreign customs officers. I do not consider it a perk, and being treated as guilty until proven innocent in claiming back the expensive "approved" hotel (instead of a more affordable and convenient one that's not on the list) is just enough to let me accept the less productive option of constant telephone meetings with people whose faces I have never seen.

That is, I suppose, their goal. Reduced overhead looks good, while lost business and reduced productivity just looks like market forces that are being proactively addressed by more careful attention to reducing expenses. The accountants are taking important action to tighten belts and address the failing ability of the business divisions to deliver top-line growth. The damage they do to the company actually looks like a responsible way to address the business situation. I think they have cause and effect backwards, but it's their decision to make, not mine.

That last paragraph sums up exactly what is wrong with a lot of companies these days, what happens when you let the MBAs and the bean counters run the place. Cutting corners like this, but also outsourcing or the practise of firing staff and hiring contractors, sure looks good on the balance sheet... often because the cost is the same or higher but it'll be OpEx instead of CapEx, or comes out of a different budget. The truth is that in many cases these things end up costing the company dearly.

Remember what they say about accountants: they know the cost of everything, but they don't have a clue about the value.

I bet you also think that your employer "pays half" of your Social Security tax. All those things I mentioned, which you classify as perks, are part of the whole package - your salary, your benefits, your coffee, it all equals X dollars per year. If they remove one or more of those, its a pay cut, pure and simple.

You have this awful sense of entitlement. Free coffee? Have to justify travel expenses? C'mon the company does not exist to serve you, you exist to work for them and provide value at a minimum of expense.

No, we really don't exist to work for companies and provide them with maximum value at minimum expense. Thinking we do... now that's an awful sense of entitlement.

I am at my job to exchange my skills (brain time; me thinking about your problem), for money and benefits.

I will attempt to do so at the rate the market will bear.

If the company wants to lowball their skills vendor; the one with whom they've had a long-term positive relationship; the one who has institutional knowledge that helps the vendor understand their unique business needs... that's up to the company.

You may find somebody else to put at my desk, but you will *never* be able to replace me. That's why

Hate to break it to you, but employees are one of the stakeholders at a company. Contrary to popular belief, a company's sole responsibility is NOT to its shareholders; a company needs to properly balance its responsibilities to it shareholders, employees, and customers.
Employees are not ONLY an expense; very often, they are also the reason that a company has a profit to worry about in the first place. If a company spends.1% of its revenue on employee perks like coffee and it earns them 1% in productivity, that sounds like a fantastic return.
Focusing on expenses only is back ass-wards, shortsighted, and often counterproductive.

Employees are also a company's greatest asset. For some reason most managers and corporate officers forget this. Also, I have never met anyone who works every second of the day while in the office, especially when it comes to upper management. Taking five minutes to check your personal email or scan the headlines on slashdot doesn't really hurt anyone or get in the way of productivity. Taking small, inexpensive perks away from your employees, especially when in the name of cost cutting, does nothing but cre

That's the situation I'm in right now. Our bonuses have been cut 3 years consecutively now. We've always paid for our own coffee. As for travel, they understand that if they don't pay the costs, we aren't going. Only because it'd be illegal for them to do so.

Yeah, the biggest part of it is that the company is EXPANDING. We've opened 6 new locations last year. Easy to buy property in these hard times. But they just can't seem to afford bonuses this Christmas.

But they know that if I were to walk out, it'd be tough to find a job.

Anywhere that would cut out coffee from the budget is quite frankly insane. It's a minuscule expense compared to the HR budget and improves productivity dramatically when people would otherwise be flagging (early mornings for night owls, afternoons for early birds).

The ability to provide free, legal performance enhancing drugs is one of the few negligible-cost productivity boost techniques available. You'd have to be both petty and highly incompetent as a manager to do away with it.

I haven't received a bonus in about two years. It was a $1000 check. And the only reason I got that little gift is that I MADE money for my company. One of the perks of being a contractor for a small company. Of course, that contract ended, so I went to work for a larger IT company, and haven't received a bonus since. Working directly for a company is nice, but contracting pays better.

Perk decrease has been going for a long time since dotbomb. In my previous company they used to have all kinds of free snacks (bagels, jams, cream cheese, fruits, salads) and happy hour with free hot food every Friday, then one sunny day it all ended abruptly, only caffeinated coffee remained (that reminded me of the practice of banana companies of the XIX century that encouraged workers to chew coca leaves).

I work for government now and we do not have any free food at all. Good thing is that people can bri

I would sacrifice all of those perks for more paid time off. HP offers new employees something like 12 days PTO and then it schedules 10 days of forced shutdowns per year to get accumulated PTO off the books. This means any new employee gets 2, count them, 2 days to schedule at their own convenience. That's deeply disrespectful. (I don't work at HP but I have friends that do).

You want better working conditions? Then stop kowtowing to the man every chance you get.

US (and british) companies have become VERY good at making employees think they are doing them a favor by employing them. It works great for them and allows them to fire people and make the rest glad they got a job in a recession that is SO bad not a SINGLE big company executive has had his/her bonuses cut. Odd that. 10% unemployment yet the bonuses for the top happen the same as before.

We've long had a person head up a 'coffee club', collecting from the javajunkies on the floor every month. Enough money was left to have a group lunchat month-end. AFAICT the coffee machine was there long before, industrial type-- 2 open carafes with an orange one for decaf, you probably saw one in adiner somewhere -- not the 10 or 12 cup coffeemakers you get from Costco.

401K? Long gone from the employer's side, we're waiting for the firstanniversary announcement, if they will reinstate their contribution. I feelless of a team player if they did not.

Yup, not just in IT. This was the travel industry. Welcome to the club, gents.

Wait: we don't get pensions anymore. 401k contributions ARE our retirement plans. Cutting 401k is the same as saying "we care about you SO little, that we hope you die hungry and cold in your old age."

No, no, no! They're just trying to help you by encouraging you to be responsible for your own future. In the past, the company was stealing your opportunity to be fully responsible for your retirement. Now, they feel bad about that, and are giving that responsibility back to you. It's time to celebrate!

Next month, they're going to stop stealing your opportunity to work twice as hard for half as much pay. It's a glorious future that your corporate masters have planned for you. Celebrate, slave, celebrate!

Some company perks that I just don't want and will never use:- I don't want a company celphone. I have my own phone, I don't want to have to keep track of business and private calls, I don't want my boss to get a list of all the calls I make in a month, and I don't want to have to carry around two phones. The company phone is lying in the closet, unused, the subscription fee is being paid for nothing.- I don't want a company laptop. I don't need one for my work (customers *naturally* never allow machines on their network that they didn't provide themselves). For private use, it's useless. It does not have the specs I would have chosen for my own laptop, and I'm not free to modify it or change the software on it. It's been lying in the closet, unused. It's worse than useless, as I can't justify buying one for myself as long as I "have a perfectly ok laptop gathering dust in the closet".- Company presentations preceeded by Paintball or Casino: please keep it serious and treat me like an adult. I don't come to the office to play games with colleagues, just give the presentation.- Free coffee: I don't care. It's nice if it's there, but it's such a minor issue that if they want to save the shockingly huge amount of money that goes into rent and support of these machines, by all means do so, I'm not going to work less hard if I have to buy my own drinks.

You're wrong about company phone.Company phone is what you switch off the moment your work hours end. You use it on business travels, you use it during rush and in case you promise to be catchable.Private phone number is the one which you keep secret.

As for laptop, YMMV. If you're a field technician, your company laptop will be invaluable for you because it has what your work requires, not what you would buy for yourself.

Free coffee... only as long as I know the money they save on my coffee land in -my- poc

While in larger companies doing away with free coffee could be a sensible alternative to laying off perhaps 0.5% of the work force, you have to wonder about the margins and sustainability of a corporation that actually *needs* to do that. As for smaller companies - if they can't even afford free coffee, it must really suck to work there.

I can only recommend managers to think about how much free for employees (good) food and drinks actually cost you compared to the part of the salaries that goes towards pizza/drinks at work otherwise, what the benefits are (healthier employees, less time wasted ordering stuff or going out to buy it) and how it may or may not make people feel more attached/loyal to your company. As for coffee - think of the headaches from caffeine deprivation you might induce if you don't provide it.;-)

Coffee is a cost like any other. To support employees, certain costs are expected. A computer to sit at, an ergonomic chair, pens and paper, ink, janitorial services, bathroom supplies, phone and DID number, and more.

A complete coffee service costs less than $1 per employee (that drinks it) per day if bought in industrial bulk. there are dozens of other costs that far exceed that. many companies simply use an honor system and place a can with a slot near the coffee pot and ask folks to spare $0.25 for

so for about 250 initially and a monthly recurring cost of about 50 bucks. hmmm, 20 sleepy employees who are sluggish and inattentive for several hours a day (lets say 2 hours, or 1/4 of their shift). now, per employee that's a monthly cost of $2.50 to not diminish that 1/4 of their shift.

how little would you have to be paying your employees to not think that's a good idea? pennies a day???

furthermore, this isn't much of a cost cutting measure. even if I have 10,000 people working for me, I'm only paying $2500 a month to give them coffee (excluding the cost of the machines, which last a decade) or $30,000 per year, which is nothing for a 10,000 employee company.

It's called the Juan Valdez Amendment to the Constitution. It's there really. Look it up. It guarantees all workers the right to free coffee during work hours. Ratification of that Amendment has been written into my employment contracts for over 20 years.

I'm a firm believer that if a business wants to show it cares, it'll say it with money. Because that's the only thing that matters to a business. if it's parting with cash in ways it does not absolutely have to, that says something. But barring that, there's cashless ways to show care. There's not much you can do if you're doing IT-as-a-service where you need to be available for fixed hours but if you're doing dev work that doesn't go on a fixed schedule, give flex time! You worked late during the week, take a half day Friday. Costs the company nothing, same amount of work is getting done. Need a dr's appointment? For the love of xod, we're not going to ding you four hours of vacation time for it.

I don't really get the silly stuff like pool tables and video games. That just seems like prolonging time spent at work and in a non-productive fashion. I would put more of a premium on getting the max amount of work done in the shortest possible time so people can go home. Quality of life is about having a life outside the office. In-house masseuses, catered lunches every day, that seems a little wasteful. But cutting 401k, cutting fucking coffee? Major dick moves.

Employers are doing it because it's an employer's market out there. But rest assured, these employers will reap what they sow. The best employees are always the most mobile employees. If your best feel dicked over or if there's even the slightest concern about company stability, they will be out the door in a heartbeat. And it's now accepted in IT culture that you will NEVER make more money at the same employer. The only way to raise your pay is to move to another organization because your current one will never justify paying more for the person they already have, no matter if you're learning new skills, taking on more work, or improving the bottom line.

My kids think the day I came home with office furniture, boxes of office supplies, company teeshirts, and random promotional paraphenalia as one of the best days of Daddy's working life. It was like Christmas to the kids for each of them to get a lucite paperweight with our latest chip in it. Of course, unbeknownst to them, it was the day the company folded, and I was laid off. Still kinda cracks me up... it's all about how you look at things, as to whether they're they end of the world, or just a new world of adventure.:)

TFA is a press hit from a PR firm people. Seriously, "Channel Insider"? They aren't even trying very hard to hide the fact that they are a bullshit marketing rag full of advertising copy, "special advertising sections" (you know the ones that try to disguise themselves as "articles" and actually useful content), and "articles" submitted by PR firms on behalf of paying clients to score a "Press Hit". I would put the credibility of anything coming out of "Channel Insider" at just about zero.